Guesswork on the Internet

 
Online The Internet is foreign to advertising agencies. This is shown by an analysis of their web presences. Conclusion: disappointing.  
"Many advertising agencies maintain the worst websites we see," Christoph Glauser from Argyou told the industry service persoenlich.com in December. And indeed: Swiss advertising agencies communicate anything but proven Internet competence. Long loading times, annoying Flash animations, misleading links, pixelated logos, sudden construction noise from the loudspeakers or non-updated agency information make for irritating looks from visitors. "Should I really be buying online expertise here?" many a worried marketing manager has probably asked themselves. It is not uncommon for people in his profession to have to click through complex navigation menus to find the right information. Anyone can try it out for themselves and see that advertising agencies are often left guessing on the Internet. Werbewoche took a close look at twelve local agency websites and pitted them against each other in several categories (see table). The result is surprising. Creative heavyweights such as Publicis or Ruf Lanz, which occupy top positions in the Werbewoche creative ranking, are disappointing across the board. Oliver Reichenstein, a proven usability expert and founder of the company iA, summarizes the desolate situation: "No agency manages the balancing act between usability and brand. Either the site is usable, but not brand-compliant, or it naively reproduces the paper design in Flash and tries to mime interactivity with meaningless animation nonsense."
 
 

The editorial team and Oliver Reichenstein noticed the extensive use of Flash-based websites. Reichenstein: "Very few of them are good. In terms of concept, most of them are rather weak." Criticisms of most Flash experiments include the long waiting times when loading the website and the gimmicks that are anything but media-compliant. The inappropriate use of Flash is symptomatic for the Japan-based information designer, but it is not the only problem. "The media misunderstanding of advertisers is also evident in the unmotivated use of sounds. The Internet is not a television. Control over image, sound and text must be placed entirely in the hands of the user."
Although most Swiss agencies leave an overwhelmed impression on the Internet, they are by no means alone. Even in the USA, the lousy websites annoy marketing managers, who recently expressed their displeasure in the trade journal Advertising Age. The basic tenor: most agency websites are no good. The managers surveyed attested to the agencies' self-indulgence. Instead of offering added value, the websites resemble colorful playgrounds where the creatives simply want to be as hip as possible and are far removed from being serious business partners. In the USA, this development now even has a name: "digital masturbation".
However, things are not yet that bad in Switzerland. Werbewoche was impressed by the two websites of the Zurich agency JWT+H+F and the Bern-based creative think tank Contexta. Jung von Matt/Limmat, Wirz, Publicis and Ruf Lanz were surprisingly disappointing. Not only do they struggle with updating the content, but they are also barely convincing in the categories of media conformity, brand proximity, usability and information design. Lowe has to go completely over the books.
Christian Lüscher